1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, this invention relates to the generation of malware definition data for mobile computing devices, for example data defining computer viruses, worms, Trojans, banned files, banned words, banned images etc. for devices such as personal digital assistants, smartphones, personal data storage devices etc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known that malware, such as computer viruses, worms, Trojans, banned files, banned words, banned images etc, provides a significant threat to data processing systems. In order to address this threat, malware scanners are provided that perform on-access or on-demand examination of computer files to determine if they are infected with malware. In order to be fully effective, it is important that the malware definition data in use should be kept as up-to-date as possible. The greatest malware threat is often posed by the most newly released malware items and up-to-date malware definition data is needed in order to detect such newly released malware items. Within the context of fixed location computing devices, such as user PCs within business networks, it is established practice and there are provided known tools (such as e-Policy Organiser produced by Network Associates, Inc) that may be used to ensure that each computer has access to the most up-to-date malware definition data quickly.
There is an increasing and accelerating use of mobile computing devices using a variety of different computing platforms. Examples of such devices are personal digital assistants (PDAs providing diary, e-mail, note taking and other functions), smartphones, personal data storage devices, and the like. The range of uses and forms of such devices is rapidly increasing and the above list is far from exhaustive.
With the increased use of mobile computing devices, it is starting to occur that malware is being released that targets such devices. A further problem is that a mobile computing device may serve to store a malware infected file that does not impact that device itself, but does cause a problem when transferred to another device. A mobile computer device can thus act as an “typhoid Mary” in spreading malware infection.
One approach to malware scanning mobile computing devices is to download the computer files they store to a PC, and then use the malware scanner on the PC to scan those files. Whilst this works, it is slow. This slowness is made worse by the rapidly increasing data storage capacities of mobile computing devices which results in the need to transfer larger volumes of data to and from those devices for scanning.
As mentioned previously, it is also important that malware definition data should be up-to-date in order to protect against newly released malware items. Malware scanner providers expend considerable effort in rapidly providing updates to their malware definition data when a new threat occurs. A newly released computer virus, such as a mass mailing macro virus, can spread rapidly and it is important to the customers of such malware scanner providers that malware definition data which will identify such items of malware is available in a matter of hours from the release of the new malware item. Providing different sets of malware definition data targeted at different mobile computing platforms represents an additional and disadvantageous maintenance overhead and slows down the availability of updated malware definition data.
Measures which can provide malware protection for mobile computing devices and easy updating of malware definition data are strongly advantageous.